1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to mechanical vending machines. More particularly, this invention relates to a mechanical vending machine for vending pencils or other long cylindrical objects one at a time.
2. Description of the Background Art
Many coin operated vending machines have been invented over the years for dispensing various articles. Throughout the United States steps are being taken to improve vending machines. Vending machines have been in use for many years for dispensing many different size and shaped articles. The primary advantage of the vending machine is that they do not require the presence of an operator and hence reduce the cost of delivering the article to the consumer. The consumer merely inserts the proper coinage in the machine and self-operates the mechanism to have the desired product dispensed. The primary responsibility the owner of the vending machine has is to service and refill the machine on a periodic basis and to remove the coins deposited therein in exchange for the vended merchandise.
The invention described herein is a vending machine to vend a single pencil, one at a time. The invention has great utility in schools or any other place where pencils might be needed on the spur of the moment. Airports, bus stations and other places where the public gathers are appropriate locations for the invention. The invention requires no sales labor at all. Therefore the invention has a significant economic benefit over purchasing a pencil from a retail clerk in a retail setting.
The invention stores twice the amount of product as previous machines stored. This reduces the service labor by increasing the interval between service to restock the invention.
Further, the invention requires no outside sources of power, either electric or pneumatic in order to function. Therefore, the operating costs of the invention are extremely low. The only operating cost associated with the invention is the service labor to collect the coins from the coin deposit box and to restock the pencils in the storage hopper inside the cabinet.
Many systems have been developed in the past to vend long cylindrical objects.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,299,333 issued to Welsch discloses a dispenser for vending elliptical cigarette lighters. The dispenser having a flat pusher bar and a pusher plate to facilitate dispensing the cigarette lighters. The dispenser further has a mounting gate which pivots to prevent subsequent cigarette lighters from falling out of the discharge aperture.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,396,721 issued to Milawap discloses an apparatus to vend a drinking straw. The mechanism has a discharge plunger and a plurality of agitating fingers to keep the straws in a proper alignment prior to the delivery.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,194,431 issued to Garvin discloses a vending machine for dispensing cylindrical articles by using a pusher plate.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,602,765 issued to Green discloses a vending machine for dispensing automotive valve cores, by using an ejector bar and a swing biased gate.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,632,493 issued to McFarland discloses an access door for removing a vended product after the proper combination of coins has been inserted in the coin pusher bar. The design of the door prohibits the unauthorized removal of the unvended product from the vertically disposed storage container located above the door.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,870,895 issued to McDaniel discloses a vending machine with a pusher bar element slidable on a track for dispensing articles horizontally to a discharge point.
None of these previous efforts, however, provide the benefits attendant with the present invention. Additionally, prior techniques do not suggest, the present inventive combination of component elements as disclosed and claimed herein. The present invention achieves its intended purposes, objectives and advantages over the prior art devices through a new, useful and unobvious combination of component elements, which is simple to use, with the utilization of a minimum number of functioning parts, at a reasonable cost to manufacture, assemble, test and by employing only readily available materials. Further, the present invention requires no outside source of power whatsoever to function.
It is an object of the invention to provide a vending system that is easily maintainable in the field by service personnel with a minimum of mechanical skills.
A further object of the invention to provide a system with storage capacity for a large number of articles to reduce the frequency of service for reloading new merchandise.
It is a still further objective of the invention to provide a system for vending the pencil one at a time in a manner to prevent jamming therein.
A still further object of the invention is to provide a system that discourages theft of the unvended merchandise and the unauthorized removal of the coins contained therein.
A still further object of the invention to provide a system that is not dependent on any external power source to have the product vended.
It is a still further object of the invention to provide a system that is dependent upon gravity alone to deliver the vended product to the purchaser.
It is a final object of the system to provide a system which can store in excess of seven gross of pencils, thereby increasing the service interval and reducing the labor required to restock the merchandise.
Although there have been many inventions relating to mechanical vending systems for vending a long cylindrical object, none of the inventions have become sufficiently compact, low cost and reliable enough to become commonly used. The present invention meets the requirements of a simplified design, low initial cost, low operating cost, ease of installation and maintainability, and independent of an outside power source.
The foregoing has outlined some of the more pertinent objects of the invention. These objects should be construed to be merely illustrative of some of the more prominent features and applications of the intended invention. Many other beneficial results can be obtained by applying the disclosed invention in a different manner or modifying the invention within the scope of the disclosure. Accordingly, other objects and a fuller understanding of the invention may be had by referring to the summary of the invention and the detailed description of the preferred embodiments in addition to the scope of the invention defined by the claims taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.